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Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Procrustes, a Model for the Liturgical Reform

Procrustes, a Model for the Liturgical Reform

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain

Procrustes chopped off limbs to fit everyone to his bed

Although Holy Saturday is the last day of the Sacred Triduum, it was the
first target of the reformers’ aim to change the entire Holy Week
liturgy. Initially, they pretended that it was only a question of
changing the time of the ceremony from morning to night. (1) But we
now know for certain that what was being planned by Bugnini and the
Papal Commission in 1948 was far more disruptive of Tradition and takes
us onto quite a different plane.

A Procrustean reform

Whereas the other ceremonies of Holy Week were only partially affected
by cuts and innovations, the Easter Vigil, as we shall see, was totally
dismembered, its remaining parts arbitrarily rearranged and altered to
change its symbolic meaning from a Christ-centred to a man-centred
celebration.

To illustrate the point by way of analogy, let us recall
the story from Greek mythology about Procrustes, a rogue innkeeper and
robber from Attica who had a bed that he claimed would fit anyone, no
matter how tall or short the person would be. And he was right – he
forced his guests to fit the size of the bed by cutting off their legs
or stretching their bodies into the required shape, before robbing them
of their valuables.

The analogy can be aptly applied to the new Easter Vigil, which Pius XII presented to the Church as a fait accompli
in 1956 when it became obvious that the entire rite had been hacked and
racked on a Procrustean bed of reform, with many of its precious assets
stolen. The reformers chose “active participation” as the bed on which
the traditional rite was to be measured, and decided that whatever parts
of it did not conform to their ideals should be hacked off or twisted
beyond recognition.

The Easter Vigil put in the dock

Now, we will examine the 1948 “Memo” to see what in that text was used
to justify the creation of a new rite. Chapter 3 reveals the fundamental
bias of the Commission against the traditional Easter Vigil, how it was
put on trial and accused under false pretences of being unfit for
purpose.

Fr. Ferdinando Antonelli mentioned some “problems” with the traditional
Easter Vigil as a whole which, he considered, stood in need of reform.
To begin with, he considered the centuries-old tradition of holding the
Vigil in the morning as an aberration from the practice of the early
Christians who held it at night, and recommended a return to antiquity.

There were, in his opinion, too many Old Testament readings (“profezie”
or prophecies) and not enough emphasis on Baptism or scope for “active
participation” by the laity. So, the remedy was to be sought in a
swingeing reduction of the number of Scriptural passages – these were
reduced from 12 to 4 – increased levels of activity by the laity and the
introduction of a complete liturgical novelty, the renewal of baptismal
promises by the congregation. (2)

Negative stereotypes

But all these points, far from constituting evidence for a reform,
simply reflected the views that were characteristic of the leaders of
the Liturgical Movement. As we have seen, these views had already been
doing the rounds in the German-speaking lands in the 1930s and 1940s
when some progressivists such as Frs. Pius Parsch, Romano Guardini and
Hans Reinhold were conducting their own experiments with the Easter
Vigil in defiance of Canon Law.

In fact, there is reason to believe that what Fr. Antonelli wrote in the
“Memo” about the presumed need to reform the Easter Vigil was merely
the expression of his own personal opinions coupled with those of other
activists for liturgical reform. The fine details of this reform were
left to be hammered out by a sub-commission – in secret – and later
approved by Pius XII.

A ‘courageous innovation’

One of the reforms that Antonelli had in mind – which is actually what
transpired – was the insertion of a new rite into the Easter Vigil,
which would allow the congregation to renew their baptismal promises in
dialogue with the priest. He stated in the “Memo:”

Above, a reformed Saturday Vigil ceremony; below, a vigil liturgy of the Neo-Catechumenal Way

“It is a question of finding courageous men with a good knowledge of the
ancient liturgy, capable of creating today a rite, a ceremony, in the
sense of the primitive liturgy and in the spirit of modern life. That is
one of the points that many people hope for from this long desired
liturgical reform.” (3)

Before proceeding further, we must note that the “many people” were the
few key progressivist reformers, mainly from Germany and France,
supported by a band of zealous flag-wavers and that there was certainly
no popular demand among the clergy or laity for a reform of the Easter
Vigil.

Earlier in the “Memo” he stated that “the Church knows how to make
courageous innovations when the supreme good of Christian life demands
it.” (4)

Thus, he introduced two concepts that were foreign to the Church’s
discipline: that innovation was a praiseworthy and integral part of
liturgical development, and that new rites that had no precedent in
liturgical history can be invented if deemed by “courageous men” –
including himself (5) – to be good for the people. From that moment,
the official organs of the Holy See embarked on a course of liturgical
adventurism that would lead eventually to the most incongruous
innovation of all: Pope Paul’s New Mass.

It is only in the light of the “Memo,” then, that we can interpret the
thinking behind Article 23 of the Constitution on the Liturgy, which
says that “there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church
genuinely and certainly requires them,” and that “any new forms adopted
should in some way grow organically from forms already existing.”

It was only in the estimation of the reformers that their innovations
were considered “good.” And the “new forms” envisaged by them came not
from “forms already existing”
in Tradition, but from those conceived and enacted by the reformers outside
Tradition, which had no right to existence in the first place.
Unfortunately, Pius XII incorporated some of these into the Church’s
official liturgy.

An Orwellian moment

Suddenly the destroyers of Tradition who had been ignoring or
deliberately flouting the rubrics and rebelling against authority were
transformed into heroes of the Church. Received forms of worship that
had been the mainstay of the spiritual life of the faithful for
centuries and were instrumental in the formation of countless saints
were deemed useless and cast aside by the “courageous” actions of the
progressivist reformers.

But, anyone truly courageous enough to put his head above the parapet
and oppose these reforms was immediately shot down in flames and
subjected to a campaign of bullying, intimidation and personal abuse by
members of the Liturgical Movement.

In the next section, we will deal with the 1956 reform of the Easter
Vigil. It will become clear that Antonelli and his companions were
acting not from the moral virtue of courage, that is, to save the
traditional Vigil and prevent it from coming to harm, but rather from
their own narrow, one-sided and self-serving desire to destroy it.

To be continued

The three aforementioned “expert” Consultors of the Commission were
all in favour of holding the Vigil at night , with Capelle being the
most adamant about it. Memoria Sulla Riforma Liturgica: Supplement II, pp. 21-22.

Memoria Sulla Riforma Liturgica, nn. 73-75

Ferdinando Antonelli, Memoria, n. 75.

Ibid., n. 16.

In fact, Fr. Antonelli once boasted of his self-styled “courage” to
Pius XII during an audience when he presented his “Memo” to the Pope.
In his diary, dated July 22, 1949, he said that the Pope, having read
some of the “Memo”, described the proposals for reform as “valientes”
(courageous). And Antonelli replied that his “courage” was based on his
confidence that he could count on the Pope’s support. As it turned out,
his confidence was rewarded by Pius XII in the Holy Week reform. Apud Nicola Giampietro, El cardenal Ferdinando Antonelli y la reforma litúrgica, Ediciones Cristiandad, 2005, p. 42, note 30.

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St. Bernard:

Go forth confidently then, you knights, and repel the foes of the cross of Christ with a stalwart heart. Know that neither death nor life can separate you from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ, and in every peril repeat, "Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's." What a glory to return in victory from such a battle! How blessed to die there as a martyr! Rejoice, brave athlete, if you live and conquer in the Lord; but glory and exult even more if you die and join your Lord. Life indeed is a fruitful thing and victory is glorious, but a holy death is more important than either. If they are blessed who die in the Lord, how much more are they who die for the Lord!

How secure, I say, is life when death is anticipated without fear; or rather when it is desired with feeling and embraced with reverence! How holy and secure this knighthood and how entirely free of the double risk run by those men who fight not for Christ! Whenever you go forth, O worldly warrior, you must fear lest the bodily death of your foe should mean your own spiritual death, or lest perhaps your body and soul together should be slain by him.

Indeed, danger or victory for a Christian depends on the dispositions of his heart and not on the fortunes of war. If he fights for a good reason, the issue of his fight can never be evil; and likewise the results can never be considered good if the reason were evil and the intentions perverse. If you happen to be killed while you are seeking only to kill another, you die a murderer. If you succeed, and by your will to overcome and to conquer you perchance kill a man, you live a murderer. Now it will not do to be a murderer, living or dead, victorious or vanquished. What an unhappy victory--to have conquered a man while yielding to vice, and to indulge in an empty glory at his fall when wrath and pride have gotten the better of you!

But what of those who kill neither in the heat of revenge nor in the swelling of pride, but simply in order to save themselves? Even this sort of victory I would not call good, since bodily death is really a lesser evil than spiritual death. The soul need not die when the body does. No, it is the soul which sins that shall die.

The knight of Christ, I say, may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently, for he serves Christ when he strikes, and serves himself when he falls. Neither does he bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister, for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of the good. If he kills an evildoer, he is not a mankiller, but, if I may so put it, a killer of evil. He is evidently the avenger of Christ towards evildoers and he is rightly considered a defender of Christians. Should he be killed himself, we know that he has not perished, but has come safely into port.

Once he finds himself in the thick of battle, this knight sets aside his previous gentleness, as if to say, "Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord; am I not disgusted with your enemies?" These men at once fall violently upon the foe, regarding them as so many sheep. No matter how outnumbered they are, they never regard these as fierce barbarians or as awe-inspiring hordes. Nor do they presume on their own strength, but trust in the Lord of armies to grant them the victory.

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Saint Athanasius

"May God console you! ... What saddens you ... is the fact that others have occupied the churches by violence, while during this time you are on the outside. It is a fact that they have the premises – but you have the Apostolic Faith. They can occupy our churches, but they are outside the true Faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the Faith dwells within you. Let us consider: what is more important, the place or the Faith?The true Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in the struggle – the one who keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith? True, the premises are good when the Apostolic Faith is preached there; they are holy if everything takes place there in a holy way ..."You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the Church by your Faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis. No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, beloved Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day. "Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that they represent the Church; but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray. Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ."